Artist/Designer/Writer...Swimmer

TIME PLEASE!

unripened holly berries

Much water under the bridge since my last entry, I’ve spent some time at home, then half of last week in Co. Dublin, progressing the website of my very good friend, artist Maura O’Rourke and then I accompanied a most interesting group of people on Jim Hunter’s weekend ‘residency’ on Tory Island as part of the University of Ulster’s Talks & Tours programme. (more of in my next blog entry) The accompanying green holly berry image was taken at the reputed birthplace of Columcille, in Gartan Donegal.

The title for this entry – ‘time please!’ had several other rivals:- ‘simplicity | complexity’; ‘aesthetic beauty’; and ‘the senses of beauty’, but since it’s purpose is ostensibly to explain why it might be necessary to spend 12 years developing the ‘exploring identity’ theme of my arts practice, I felt that title best served the article… (which I wrote this morning using pen, ink and paper technologies)

The world is a very complex place, and my arts practice reflects that complexity, however, it uses a process of artistic fermentation and distillation that will given time simplify that complexity. In a similar process to the production of a fine wine or a well-blended whisky, it is the processes used and the time, which passes that produce the distinctive flavours. Subtle flavours which are aesthetically pleasing – something ‘new’ that didn’t exist before.

Impatient as human beings are, we do understand that when a vintage wine is decanted, or a 12 year old single malt is poured – our lives are enriched, if we learn to enjoy the experience.

Aesthetic appreciation is in itself complex – knowledge and understanding of the process is a good base, but ‘explanations’ on their own fall short. Our awareness of the ‘beautiful’ whether that be fragrance, flavour, sound, sensation or visual beauty depends on the extent to which we have and use the senses of sight, hearing, smell, touch and taste.

Most human beings have some impairment of those senses, some from birth, others diminish during life, but when we use the senses we have to ‘experience’ a piece of theatre, a song, a meal, or a sculpture alongside our ‘intellect’ – with it’s ‘explanations’ our aesthetic appreciation enhances our experience of being human.

The world we live in now, doesn’t like to be kept waiting, a 20 second delay in downloading a webpage causes most people to leave that page. Even so, I can’t apologise for embarking on a process that will require a dozen years before the final result is available to be sampled. For me art is the ‘process’ and ‘result’ of bringing to the outside, what’s on the inside. In my case the ‘process’ is complex – but I invite you to observe… I expect that the ‘result’ will have simplified that complexity, and will be enjoyable both to understand and experience.

I trust that the fine blend of simple flavours will enhance our experience of being human – not only as individuals, but collectively as ‘creative beings’.